Living Room Makeover

It had been a kind of joke for a while that the first thing I was going to do as soon as we bought a house was to get rid of our one-and -only couches we'd ever owned and packed around for 12 years and finally redo the living room.  But when we actually moved in, I think the task of finding something new to fill such a big and somewhat awkward space was so daunting that I put it nearly last.  Now that I finally finished, I have to say I LOVE it!
Before:

Lots of aweful faux paint!

There are those lovely couches...goodbye!

AFTER:

Halloween Time!

Halloween was quite fun this year!  Mackenzie and Collin are at the perfect age for all the holidays to be so real and magical for them.  And with Halloween first, they were excited to pick their costumes, pick pumpkins, and go trick-or-treating!  So first we headed out to the pumpkin patch and hand-pick our own pumpkins.

Decisions, decisions...

One of many Mackenzie picked.  It nearly weighed as much as her!

Sadly we never got around to carving them, but it was fun to have them on the porch so Mackenzie could feel like we decorated.

Halloween Night...

Much to my dismay, they were not willing to be Little Red Riding Hood and The Big Bad Wolf.  I don't think they'll ever be what I want them to.  My days of getting them to do that are over!  So instead Mackenzie was an adorable Strawberry Shortcake and Collin got to be the oh-so-cool skeleton.

And off they go!

Skeleton meets Frankenstein.  Collin loved checking this guy out!

At the end of the night, I had handed out over 600 pieces of candy, and ran out!  So my kids' 2 hours of hard work, running house to house, was put to good use and we handed most of their candy back out.  I was sure glad to see it all disappear!

Soccer Stars!

Time has seriously ran away without me.  My computer and I haven't been spending much time together this last month or so, which has been a great thing in someways, but I've abandoned my blog world unintentionally for a while, partly because life has been crazy and I guess mostly due to Collin breaking yet another computer and setting me back a month or so in all computer related aspects of my life - which are a lot!

So I'm hopefully going to catch up!

So this past Fall, Mackenzie and Collin both played soccer.  It was Mackenzie's second season, Collin's first.  They both were champs and much needed players on their teams!  They ran me ragged for 2 months just trying to keep up with their practices and games, but it was so fun to watch them.  Here's some pics throughout the season.

Mackenzie is in control of the ball and everyone else is chasing her down.  This is how it typically went each game.  She is such a talented player and best of all, she LOVES it!

Oh yeah, she's going to score, yet again!  They would keep track of their goals each game, and end up with the majority of the goals every time.  Both teams went undefeated and Mackenzie and Collin each had a lot to do with it!

When Mackenzie had to sit out for a break in the game, she would tell her coach "I'm not tired though". She just wanted to play the entire time!

Here's Collin headed for the goal. He kept track of this goals and ran to the sidelines each time afterwards and told me his goal tally and asked if he could go now. He was so good at it, but it was too long and usually too hot for him to run around out there. He loved to score, but was always ready to go!